


Forever be Damned

by LivaWilborg



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Assassin's Creed II, Friendship/Love, M/M, Personal Growth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 06:30:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17996705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LivaWilborg/pseuds/LivaWilborg
Summary: After seeing Ezio do what he does best - horrifically murder people! - Leonardo is caught between the assassin and the guards closing in.Having been Ezio's hostage leads Leonardo to question their friendship and his entire reason for liking the assassin.





	Forever be Damned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Izzy_Grinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzy_Grinch/gifts).



> This is a gift for the amazing [Izzy_Grinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzy_Grinch/pseuds/Izzy_Grinch), who gave me the most astounding review I've ever had and can ever hope for. Thank you so much! =D
> 
> Also a big thanks to the amazing [Aniphine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aniphine/pseuds/Aniphine) who kindly beta read it. As always: Thank you for your help!! I super appreciate having front row access to your brain! =D

Leonardo felt smug about himself as he strolled along Calle Spadaria on his way to the Rialto and his home beyond it. He had just secured himself a good commission, was certain of a very decent pay on a piece he could easily start and let his apprentices finish.

Even on time!

Having people actually desperate for his approval to do the boring brush-work was amazing, he should have thought of this years ago. The apprentices’ fathers even paid for their keep, and he could settle for supervising the portrait, adding in the details afterwards.

He had bought a bag of peaches and some sweet-bread and was eating a piece of fruit as he strolled along, lazy in the warmth of the afternoon sun.

He would have to purchase a fresh supply of cinnabar, he reminded himself. The stores of green-earth and lamp-soot were running low as well. This piece would require ultramarine, too. For the robe. But he had that, being very particular about his pigments, especially the expensive ones. Perhaps he should go to the apothecary himself, instead of sending an apprentice? It was a long time since he had felt the familiar scents of the strange, alchemical ingredients for sale there.

He took a turn and made his way through the warren of narrow, crowded streets behind the Piazza San Marco. He was walking unhurriedly, far away in his thoughts, still considering the trip to the apothecary. He slowly became aware, at the back of his mind, of a commotion behind him. He shook his head and didn’t bother looking; probably a vendor having a shouting match with someone, or a poor soul discovering that his money had suddenly gone missing. Being an acquaintance of Antonio came with perks. Leonardo could walk freely without having to worry about his belongings going missing, as all the thieves and cutpurses knew not to touch him.

There was a scream close behind him. And a rough cry. And suddenly someone in the crowd next to him started running down the narrow street. He lifted his head to look. Four guardsmen came thundering around the corner from Campo San Bartolomeo, the plaza before the Rialto, pushing people aside as they went.

Leonardo felt a sudden surge of fear and spun around. People were pressing against the walls of houses, eyes wide. A man was very close, running, panting, a horrified, panicked look in his eyes. There was movement behind him.

The fleeing man stumbled in his velvet robe and fell hard on his side right at Leonardo’s feet and a white flurry of motion followed. A gargled cry sounded.

And everything stood still as if time had decided to take a vacation.

For what felt like an eternity, Leonardo stood looking down at the white, hooded figure that had pounced on the fallen man. Time returned, but only at a snail’s pace; the figure moved, a thin ray of sunlight that reached the street shone brilliantly against the blade that was half-embedded in the soft flesh of the victim’s neck. The blade was withdrawn from its flesh-prison and the moment the tip was free of the skin, a sticky, thick stream of blood welled forth with horrific vigour. Great splashes of it coloured the pavement and wall next to him. The wound looked like a gaping, gasping mouth. A last, wheezing sound escaped the victim’s lips as he died. Panic was frozen in the dead eyes that stared at nothing.

“Stop!”

“Get him!”

“The Assassin is here!”

The figure looked up, his body already turning to run. And stopped! Their eyes met.

Leonardo saw how the shadows played in the green and golden-brown colours of his friend’s eyes. How his expression turned from grim resolve to realisation to horror in the space of a heartbeat. Leonardo painfully wrested his gaze away. He stared at the peach and his bags, which his numb fingers had dropped into the pool of blood that now claimed the tips of his shoes.

He looked up. At the other end of the street, guards were running closer, pushing aside the last people that had been unable to flee. He could hear screams and the heavy footfalls of guards closing in from both ends of the narrow street. He opened his mouth to say something when time suddenly returned, everything happening at speed again.

Ezio was on his feet, he was close, his hand clamped over Leonardo’s mouth, tilting his head back, holding him tightly.

“Stop!” Ezio shouted. The approaching guards halted their advance.

The knife from the assassin’s sleeve was visible, metal bloody, and Leonardo found himself pressing against Ezio to avoid being close to the weapon that suddenly disgusted him. His feet slipped in the sticky blood, but the assassin’s arms prevented him from falling.

“Say _nothing_!” Ezio whispered under his breath and began dragging Leonardo down the alley to keep an equal distance to both groups of slowly advancing guards.

The knife didn’t come close to touching his neck, Leonardo realised dispassionately. But the guards would be unable to see that as they approached from both ends of the narrow street.

“You don’t want a dead civilian on your conscience!” the assassin shouted commandingly. The guards were closing in but slowed when the captain in one of the groups lifted his hand, signalling them to stay back.

“Coward,” the captain spat. “Hiding behind the innocent... Let him go, you filthy dog!”

A little further down the street was a small shop. From where he stood, held immobile, Leonardo could see the owner, ducked down behind the counter, trembling.

“Put your weapons on the ground,” Ezio shouted. When the guards didn’t react, he pushed Leonardo’s head back against his shoulder.

The touch was not as rough as it must seem, Leonardo realised, but there was still the very real danger of getting caught in the middle if they should decide to attack, hostage be damned. He held up his hands as far as he could, pleadingly, but still unable to speak with Ezio’s hand clamped over his mouth.

“Weapons on the ground! Now!” Ezio barked, his voice seeming to fill the narrow alley.

The captain nodded, a hateful look in his eyes, and the guards put their weapons down. Leonardo felt Ezio look quickly from one group to the next.

“I’m sorry.” Leonardo heard Ezio’s soft whisper in his ear; then he was suddenly thrown sideways as the assassin dived into the shop opposite in a flash of white.

Leonardo fell hard on the pavement but felt no pain. An arrow embedded itself at a steep angle in the doorframe of the shop where Ezio had been less than a heartbeat earlier. An archer on the roof, Leonardo reasoned, and pressed himself flat against the wall as he lay there, trying to become as small as possible. The guards picked their weapons up and came running.

“He’s trapped. Get him!”

“No, the shop opens to the street on the other side. After him!”

“Call reinforcements! Go!”

“Cut him off in the next street!”

Leonardo watched as the guards split up, streaming down opposite ends of the alley, as well as into the shop. One of them stopped mid-run. “Did he hurt you?” he called urgently.

Leonardo shook his head, feeling dazed.

“Get to safety!” the guardsman shouted before running after his compatriots. Moments later the street was empty, leaving Leonardo alone with the silence and the dead man farther up the street.

He breathed a sigh and rested his head on his arm, exhausted. He felt no fear. No pain. He only studied the dirt on the pavement he rested on, as his heartbeat counted the seconds. He shifted his gaze. From where he lay, he could see the bag of bread and fruit he had carried. The blood soaked into the cloth, and he felt sick to his stomach at the thought of the tainted bread sucking up the vital fluid. Suddenly there was a sound down the street. Slowly pulling himself up in a sitting position, he saw a young man come running towards him from one of the houses. An old woman was waving him on from the doorway.

“Let me help you,” the young man said, extending his hand to pull the fallen painter to his feet. “Come on. To safety,” he said kindly, and Leonardo wordlessly joined him to where the old lady stood.

“Poor lamb!” she cooed. “I’m only sorry I was too scared to let my boy go out, or to run out there myself and beat that beast of a murderer up! Come in. Let’s get you cleaned up.” She led Leonardo inside. With much motherly fussing about the ills of the world, she gently pushed him into a chair by the table, sending her son into the kitchen for some wine, fetching a bowl of water and a clean washcloth.

“Please... You really don’t have to...“ Leonardo began. Then he saw that his hands were shaking and felt a sinking in his body as he began to realise what had happened. Just a little way down the street, a dead man was lying in a pool of blood, in an abandoned alley, the killing-wound gaping hideously in his neck.

He suddenly felt the pain. Looking down, he saw his knee scraped and bloodied. The old lady gently held his face, cleaning a wound on his cheek.

His thoughts turned to Ezio, for the first time ever accompanied by a sensation of cold in his mind. He pictured his friend running from the guards, pushing people in the streets aside, unaffected by the fact that he had just slaughtered a man, thinking only of shaking off his pursuers.

“Oh, poor dear.” The old woman put the cloth aside and looked at him, taking his shaking hands. “Here, say a prayer with me.” She softly began to pray, her warm, dry fingers holding Leonardo’s hands steadily.

After a while, the old rhythm of the prayer found its way into his mind. Familiar, calming, reminding him of his time as an apprentice, where prayers were used to measure how long you ought to grind a mineral with water to turn it into pigment. The prayers soothed his thoughts and, after a while, he found himself whispering the words under his breath with the old woman. Gratefully, he felt some of the darkness lift from his thoughts.

 

o-0-o

 

It was early evening before he was home again. The old woman had insisted that her son walk him home, and Leonardo had been unable to refuse; grateful for the company of a person who in all likelihood had never murdered anyone, nor ever seriously thought about doing so.

His thoughts had been resting on how far from himself Ezio really was, and he found himself questioning why he cared about the assassin so much. All the while, a constant undercurrent in his thoughts painfully made him aware that the blade, which had taken the life of the man in the street, was of his own making.

Now he sat in his quiet workshop, huddling in his chair with his legs drawn up, chin resting on the knee that had not been scraped bloody in the fall. A bright fire was burning and all the candles he could find were lit to leave no corners in shadow. He had quickly changed clothes as soon as he was alone and burned everything he’d worn today. The blood, seeped irrevocably into the leather of his shoes and the fabric of his clothes, disgusted him.

As he sat staring at the flames, he vaguely reprimanded himself for destroying perfectly good shoes; they could have been washed... Wasn’t he a hypocrite in thinking he could hand another man the weapons to avenge himself, to wage his own private war, and somehow expect him not to use them? Though he had told himself in the past that Ezio murdered people, seeing it so close, the victim’s terror, the panic in the street, made it seem different.

As the evening wore on, he found himself questioning what _he_ would have done, years ago, if he had suffered the same loss Ezio had? Would he have gone to war too? After watching his family killed in the most humiliating and terrible way? Treacherously murdered; even a small boy of only twelve summers, who must have been horror-struck. Would he himself have demanded blood as payment for their suffering? Was this cause not righteous?

What had the slain man in the street done to deserve his horrific fate? And did it matter?

Leonardo tilted his head and winced as the scrape on his cheekbone touched his knee, and he sighed.

Maybe the reason he cared about Ezio was for the same reason people liked cats? Pitiless, brutal killers who could look both sweet and beautiful and graceful when they needed to? Would he have felt the same loyalty for the man if he had not been so damned _paintable_?

His thoughts wandered to a time in Firenze when they’d been sitting together in the small yard, just drinking wine, telling stories, talking. One of those times where they could be normal friends, lost in the moment of happy company.

His fingers moved to his cheek to feel the wound, while his thoughts wandered. He almost jumped when there was a knock at the door. He bit his lip, heart pounding painfully.

“It’s open...” he finally called, taking a deep breath to try to loosen the knot of contradictory emotions in his chest.

He kept sitting there, wondering what to do, both dreading and looking forward to seeing Ezio as he heard the door close behind the visitor. Soft footsteps approached. Leonardo put his feet down from the chair and looked up.

Ezio was standing there. Not the white assassin, but a man who for all intents and purposes looked normal; warm, human. The green doublet he wore over grey trousers was very flattering on him, Leonardo mused instinctively as he looked him over. There were no bracers under the shirt sleeves, no sword under the large, wine-red cloak he wore to keep out the chill of the night. Ezio’s expression was unreadable as he stood still, holding Leonardo’s gaze for a long while. Then he sighed and looked down.

“Please, hear me out?” he asked.

Leonardo just nodded.

“He had a guard lurking in the room. I was attacked. I lost control. He fled. The rest you know. But...” he faltered a moment before continuing, “It looked like you were about to say my name,” Ezio said softly. “If you had, you would have been in a lot of trouble. And I needed them to see you. So you wouldn’t be caught in a fight that wasn’t yours.” He looked at Leonardo, shaking his head, making a vague gesture with his hands. “I needed them to know they couldn’t hurt you.” He fell silent, his gaze alert.

Leonardo got to his feet and moved to stand in front of the assassin, feeling strangely calm. He said nothing, just took in the details; the golden-green and hazel of Ezio’s eyes, the autumn-brown embroidery on his collar, the scars of so many conflicts making lighter lines on his tanned skin.

“Leonardo... Are we still friends?” Ezio finally asked.

“If this happened again, would you do the same?” Leonardo demanded, not completely certain where the question came from.

Ezio held his gaze for a while. “Yes,” he finally said. “I probably would.”

Leonardo gave an involuntary laugh. “At least you’re not prepared to lie for the sake of diplomacy.”

“Should I be?” Ezio asked.

“No.” Leonardo shook his head.

“So...”

“So?”

“Are we still friends, Leonardo?” he asked with painful urgency.

Leonardo reached out and put his hands on Ezio’s shoulders. It was rare to have this kind of power over him and he found himself delaying the answer, studying the question in the other man’s eyes, despite the severity of the situation. “We are friends!” he finally confirmed. “I think I probably _would_ have said your name. You were right.”

Ezio’s shoulders relaxed visibly under his hands.

“I made that weapon for you…” Leonardo’s hands dropped to his sides and he found he couldn’t quite meet his friend’s gaze. “I’m as guilty as you are. I always have been, I just never really understood it,” he said softly.

“No!” Ezio’s hands suddenly clamped on either side of Leonardo’s face, holding him, forcing their gazes to meet. “You are not responsible for my actions! No ...”

Leonardo just looked at him, almost a little shocked at his intensity. “…You’re afraid,” he finally realised.

“Of course I am. I was terrified that I’d lost your friendship and now you blame yourself for everything _I_ do? If you were right, then every smith in history is a killer. …None of this is your fault. …Please don’t do this to me.”

Leonardo silently stepped closer and slowly embraced his friend, leaned in to rest his head on his shoulder. Ezio’s hands slipped around him, holding them warmly pressed against each other.

The last horror of the day’s events, and the darkness of his thoughts, slowly dissipated from Leonardo’s mind. “I’m sorry. About everything today. I didn’t handle any of it very well,” he said and brushed his lips against Ezio’s neck. Leonardo heard Ezio’s sharp intake of breath, and the following relieved sigh, and smiled as he felt Ezio’s fingers snake into his hair. Ezio gently pulled his head back, making room for a warm, slow kiss.

Finally, Leonardo pushed away from the embrace a little.

“What happens now?” Ezio asked.

“We’re going out. I haven’t eaten all day; you’re paying. And if I let you go tomorrow, it will only be to bring you to the market, where you’ll buy me a new pair of shoes to replace the ones I had to burn. Oh, and to the tailor where you’ll buy me a new set of clothes.”

“ _If_ you let me go?” A slow grin spread on Ezio’s face.

“Mhm,” Leonardo just confirmed, trying to hide a smug smile. “Did you even hear the other things I said?”

“Yes, yes… but they seemed less important,” Ezio dismissed and quickly stole another kiss.

 

o-0-o

 

Maybe it was age – wisdom? – that had made Ezio do as Leonardo commanded. At no point last evening had he protested. There had been no hesitation from him at being unarmed, no fear of losing control or of having some undefined threat find them. Ezio had been _unarmed_ , in itself something of a miracle, Leonardo mused appreciatively.

They’d made their way back to the workshop in the early hours of the morning, both slightly tipsy, something that would also never have happened during their time in Firenze.

Stripping him of his clothes, the hot and enticing kisses, feeling him, hearing him beg softly for more, watching the beauty of him as his pleasure climaxed…

Leonardo grinned to himself and turned around in Ezio’s sleeping embrace, gently running his fingertips over his arm. He looked at him in the first thin rays of dawn sun that sneaked through gaps in the shutters, torn between wanting to capture him forever with pen and paper and staying in the warmth of the bed.

No, he thought. Forever be damned. This was too good to let go, and he knew from experience that his memory, when the assassin was concerned, was more than adequate to keep fuelling an ardent fire in him.

Leonardo slowly leaned closer and kissed the scar on Ezio’s lips; watched as he slowly resurfaced from sleep, stretched, smiled sleepily.

“ _Very_ good morning,” Ezio said softly and pulled Leonardo closer under the blanket, hands wandering down his back.

Leonardo just nodded with a happy smile, as his fingers kept caressing the contours of the well-defined muscles of Ezio’s arm.

Ezio smiled and closed his eyes again, a pleasured hum in his throat. “Don’t let me go,” he finally said.

Leonardo laughed, “I don’t intend to. I’ll pet your stomach, though. Don’t hiss.”

Ezio opened his eyes. “I’m your cat, now?” he grinned.

Leonardo just smiled in response and pushed the assassin onto his back, so he could run his fingertips over his stomach unimpeded.

“You know, cats always come back to you if they like you…” Ezio commented.

“…Provided you also feed them,” Leonardo added.

“Ah, you’re making breakfast, is that what you’re saying?” Ezio pulled him closer for a smiling kiss. “…Maybe it can wait a little, though.”

Cat… Leonardo thought. Demands to have its itches scratched, a pillow in a warm windowsill, and the right to come and go as it pleases. In exchange, it supplies its mouse-hunting skills; which is nice, as long as you don’t give a thought to the pitiless brutality the mouse will be subjected to. This chain of thoughts painted a little frown between his brows, which he became aware of when Ezio gently ran his fingers over his forehead.

“Yesterday?” Ezio asked softly.

“In a way. Not important,” Leonardo shook his head to dismiss any dark thoughts that might be lying in wait. He smiled and made himself comfortable across Ezio’s chest.

“Important,” Ezio just stated.

“No,” Leonardo let his lips brush against Ezio’s collarbone, but was stopped when the assassin gently nudged him over, so they were lying on their sides facing each other.

Ezio held his gaze; far too serious. “You are wondering what he did. To deserve it. Aren’t you?”

“I…” Leonardo held his gaze for a while. “No. I did, yesterday, but not anymore. …Are you sure you want this conversation? Now? At all?”

“Like this?” Ezio caressed Leonardo’s neck. “Much better than what I could have hoped for. And I don’t want you to…” His fingers brushed over Leonardo’s forehead where the frown had been. “To be unsure about me. So, ask.”

“You’re taking this far too seriously,” Leonardo laughed. “I appreciate it, but–”

“This is the only place I can go, where I’m not being judged or evaluated or feared. You’re important to me,” Ezio interrupted.

Leonardo searched his thoughts for a reply to this admission, but nothing presented itself.

Ezio gave a soft laugh. “Leonardo speechless… Now that’s interesting.”

“Fine, then. I don’t care what he did. The dead man. I care about how you changed,” Leonardo finally said. “It’s something I’ve never asked. But I’m not sure I understand it.”

“Changed?” Ezio frowned. “What are you asking?”

“You… I don’t really understand what happened to you, all those years ago.” Leonardo put an arm around the assassin to keep him in bed, in case this was too much of a transgression on his privacy after all. “I just wonder how you changed from not having killed, to actually having done so. I understand the reason, but not the method.”

Ezio looked at him, puzzled. Then he shifted his gaze as if searching his mind. “The change happened because it had to,” he finally said.

Leonardo had too many questions in his mind, so many that remaining silent oddly seemed the only option.

“When…” Ezio started slowly as if finding the right way through his thoughts was chaotic and difficult. “When my father and brothers were murdered, I had to get my mother and Claudia out of the city. We fled, on foot, and the journey was hard. We had nothing but our lives. We almost made it, but Vieri de Pazzi found us. I was alone, I had to protect them, but I _knew_ I couldn’t. I knew they would be violated and killed. Because I wasn’t strong enough.”

Ezio let his fingers slowly caress Leonardo’s cheek, below the cut from yesterday. Finally, he smiled a little and held Leonardo’s gaze, almost as if to reassure him. “My uncle found us then. He and his soldiers helped me beat the Pazzi mercenaries. I killed three men that day. In desperation. They attacked, I responded. There was no choice. Then my uncle took us to Monteriggioni. When…” he faltered, searching for the words, and Leonardo silently tightened his grip around him.

Ezio smiled at him and continued, “When we came to Monteriggioni, I made certain my mother and Claudia were taken care of, and then I fled to the most remote place in the villa I could find, the tower, where my room is now. I barred the hatch, and then I cried until I made myself sick, and at some point, I just passed out and slept for almost a whole day. Right there on the floor. …After that, I took all the training I could get from my uncle and his people,” he admitted softly. “I never want to be that helpless again. Ever. And all I could feel was hatred, because of what had been stolen from me. I’ll never get to help my little brother out of trouble and see what he’d become. I’ll never argue or laugh with my father or know he’s proud of me. I’ll never sit in the sun and talk with my older brother. They took all that. So there was no choice, back then. I had to kill, to keep Claudia and my mother safe. I had no one else.”

Leonardo was quiet for a while, just studying Ezio. He was strangely calm as if recounting these memories was less painful than they seemed in hearing them. “I’m so sorry you had to live through that. All of it,” he finally said. “I thought…” He searched his mind for the right way to say it, “I thought it was more… cold-blooded. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Ezio’s fingers languidly drew caressing circles on Leonardo’s back under the blanket. “It was long ago. And now it usually is, to be honest. Cold blooded, I mean. But my choices are limited. It’s not as if I can just give up and become a banker…” he grinned.

“It might cause a bit of a stir if you tried,” Leonardo smiled. “Why are you so calm about this, though? I thought I would have to tie you to the bed to keep you from fleeing.”

“Fuck!” Ezio laughed. “I missed _that_ opportunity?”


End file.
